Saturday, October 04, 2014

BOOK REVIEW: Poetry: Orchards by Holly Thompson

Fourteen year old half-Japanese,
half Jewish American, Kana Goldberg is sent to her mother’s ancestral home in
Japan after the suicide of one of her classmates – who Kana and her friends
weren’t exactly nice to.Spending the
summer months under the watchful eye of her traditional grandmother working in mikan orange groves wasn’t exactly on
her list of great ways to spend a vacation. But, the more she learns about her
family and their past, the more she opens up about what happened and begins to
grow – when news from home throws her for another loop.Her family and friends from home help her to
realize the best thing she can do to honor the memory of those lost is in how
she continues to live.

3.CRITICAL ANALYSIS

In short phrases and quiet
reflection, Thompson walks the reader through one half-Japanese, half-Jewish
American girl’s growth as she deals with being sent to spend the summer with
her Japanese relatives in the wake of a suicide of a girl from her class.Kana’s guilt over being complacent in the
girl’s treatment and the adjustment of feeling like an outsider in the midst of
her traditional family dance the reader through Japanese tradition and running
from emotion, only to have them sneak back around.The verses flow gently with the simple words.There is a quiet movement of thought in the
lines without the harshness of what she is dealing with breaking the surface -
like gentle water meandering around the page.She is coming to terms in her own time, through reflection and piecing
it together rather than forced ideas.Her internal growth mirror the orchards of mikan oranges she must help her family
tend – at first they are small and crowded, and the excess must be trimmed away
repeatedly to get to the good fruit that is waiting to grow.She must even return to the states before
seeing the fruit ripen, walking the path toward her final growth once she is
home and ready to continue to live in the wake of a second death.Small ink illustrations of bento boxes, Mt.
Fuji, orchards, and mikan trees interspersed
throughout the poems and chapters pair with the simplicity of the verses
without taking away from the impact of the words.